What Are the Benefits of Diaphragmatic Breathing?
Diaphragmatic breathing is worth implementing if you’re looking to achieve better health. This type of breathing comes with a wide range of health benefits that make it useful for anyone looking to enhance their health and well-being directly through breathing. Not only does it help strengthen the diaphragm, but it can help in a wide variety of other ways.
Outlined below are some of the key benefits that can be gained from incorporating diaphragmatic breathing in your everyday routine.
Enhances Relaxation
One of the main benefits that you can enjoy when you incorporate this type of breathing into your routine would be the ability to relax much more easily and effectively. This is why a lot of meditation practices require diaphragmatic breathing.
This type of breathing can help you achieve much greater relaxation due to the effect it can have on lowering the consequences of physiological stress in healthy adults.1
Due to its ability to lower the consequences that stress can have on the body and mind, it can help enhance the ability to achieve a relaxed physiological state. In fact, studies have shown that shallow breathing—the opposite of diaphragmatic breathing— can increase tension. 2
Promotes Better Posture
While diaphragmatic breathing is not necessarily going to directly improve your posture, the consequences of practicing diaphragmatic breathing will. This is largely due to the fact that practice of this type of breathing requires excellent posture. Thus, by practicing diaphragmatic breathing, you will be forced to improve your posture at least during the breathing exercise.
Boosts Mood
Another benefit that can be gained from incorporating diaphragmatic breathing practice into your life is a better mood. If you pay close attention to your breathing when you get upset or angry, you’ll likely notice that you begin to experience shortness of breath and begin shallow breathing. By incorporating deep breathing into your routine, you may be able to positively impact your mood.